How Neymar Has Come to Embody Soccer's Modern Age

As Neymar turns 30, a look back at 10 of his landmark moments shows just how complicated it is to judge his career—and how much he defines his era.

On Saturday, Neymar turns 30. The boy prince will be no more. That “Jr.” after his name to distinguish him from his father will seem increasingly incongruous. In theory, he will be a mature player, starting to slow down, beginning to rethink his game. Yet it all seems very sudden. He remains a prisoner of his potential, a kid of abundant talent; the most expensive player in the world and yet somehow unfulfilled. With Brazil, he has won the Confederations Cup and Olympic gold, but not the Copa América or the World Cup. He has won a Champions League with Barcelona, but his attempts to lead PSG to the success it so craves in the competition have so far come to nothing. And, perhaps most importantly for a player who is extremely conscious of his brand, he has not yet won the Ballon d’Or.

The injuries are beginning to mount up. Neymar has started running again as PSG prepares for its Champions League last-16 tie against Real Madrid, but it is far from clear he will be fit for the opening leg. That has been the story far too often. As he enters the final phase of his career, which could yet go on for five years or more despite his hints that Qatar 2022 may be his last World Cup, the possibility looms ever larger that he will never quite match the expectations of his youth.

As a great who has been burdened by his talent, plucked at by those expectations of his homeland and the demands of celebrity; someone who has been indulged almost since he first became a footballer; someone whose transfers torpedoed Barcelona and initiated the boom-and-bust cycle of the past four years, it is Neymar, more than anybody else who embodies the age. Here are 10 key games that have defined his career to this point and demonstrate just that:

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June 11, 2011: Santos 2, Peñarol 1, Copa Libertadores final second leg; Pacaembu, São Paulo, Brazil

Two minutes before halftime in the second leg of the Libertadores final, Arouca made a diagonal run across the field, slipped two challenges and, when a third nudged the ball away from him, recovered to slide a ball into the path of Neymar, arriving from the left. Neymar had disappointed in the first leg, used on the right where he had been stifled by the hulking fullback Darío Rodríguez. Coming in from the left, though, was his position, so much so that he had developed what was almost a trademark finish, shaping to go across the keeper into the far corner only to drag the ball in at the near post. He did the same again here. Perhaps Sebastian Sosa, the Peñarol goalkeeper, was slow to get down, but at least in part that was because Neymar had taken the chance so early, stroking his shot in at the near post. Santos went on to win to lift the Copa Libertadores trophy for the first time since Pelé’s side had done so in 1963. For Neymar, that game was an anointing.

The son of a footballer, Neymar had been taken on by Santos at 11 and had developed a close friendship with creative midfielder Paulo Henrique Ganso, who was two years his senior. On the pitch, they formed a devastating partnership. Ganso made his full debut for Santos in 2008, and Neymar's came the following March; together they were the stars of a rising team. Neymar’s first goal came in his second game when he was 17. A month later, he scored the winner against Palmeiras in the first leg of the Campeonato Paulista semifinal. Santos, though, lost in the final.

Santos won the Paulista the following year, with Neymar named player of the tournament. But problems were emerging. Neymar missed a penalty in the final of that year’s Copa do Brasil, and, although Santos won the game, coach Dorival Júnior instructed Neymar not to take the penalty after he had been fouled in the box in a league game soon after. Furious, Neymar had to be placated by a linesman, turned his back on the penalty and engaged in a public row with his captain. But when Dorival called for him to be suspended for two weeks, the board sacked him. If there was a time when Neymar was not indulged, it was a long time ago.

Given what happened in 2011, perhaps the board had been right to take his side. Not only did Santos retain the Paulista and win the Libertadores, but Neymar won the Puskás Award for a solo goal scored in a 5–4 defeat to Flamengo—a game coincidentally attended by a fleet of European journalists being shown Brazil’s facilities for the '14 World Cup, which helped cement his global reputation—and was named South American Player of the Year.

July 17, 2011: Brazil 0, Paraguay 0 (Paraguay 2–0 on PKs), Copa América quarterfinals; Estadio Ciudad de la Plata, La Plata, Argentina

The first leg of the Libertadores final had been a warning. What happened in Argentina in the weeks that followed was the revelation of a major problem that has yet to be fully resolved. Neymar came into the Copa América under extraordinary pressure: he hadn’t just won the Libertadores with Pelé’s former club, he was being hyped as the new Pelé. As Argentina reveled in the astonishing ability of Lionel Messi, Brazil wanted its own young star.

After the gloom of Dunga’s (first) reign as Brazil manager, of the grinding football that had led to a quarterfinal exit at the 2010 World Cup, all the talk was of Mano Menezes restoring the ideals of joga bonito, preparing for a home World Cup with a young squad based around Neymar, Ganso and Alexandre Pato, all 21 or under. But there was also Robinho, then 27, a reminder of boy wonders past, and how youthful promise only occasionally delivers.

But Brazil never got the balance right in that Copa América. If it kept a clean sheet, it couldn’t score, and if it scored it also conceded. In the first game, a 0–0 draw against Venezuela, Neymar made little impression against an unheralded Twente right back, Roberto Rosales. Dario Verón, an aggressive but limited fullback more often used as a central defender, got the better of him in a 2–2 draw against Paraguay. Neymar had a rather better time against Ecuador, scoring twice in a 4–2 win, but then he was up against Paraguay again in the quarterfinal.

Verón bullied him once more. Neymar, it had become obvious, struggled against physical defending. Again and again, he went down, appealing vainly to the referee. But where officials in the Brazilian league may have been inclined to protect him, the Argentinian Sergio Pezzotta was not. The more frustrated he became, the more Neymar tried to transform the game himself and the worse his decision-making became. He ended up sulking into irrelevance and being substituted after 80 minutes. After a 0–0 draw, Brazil lost on penalties.

UOL called Neymar “complacent” and ranked him as the worst player on the pitch, while former player Walter Casagrande condemned his individualistic nature on Globo. “It’s always me, me, me with him,” he said. “He’s forgotten or maybe he never knew that football is a collective activity.”

July 4, 2014: Brazil 2, Colombia 1, World Cup quarterfinals; Estadio Castelão, Fortaleza, Brazil

It was supposed to be Brazil’s World Cup. It was supposed to put right the Maracanazo and all the disappointments of 1950. It was supposed to be Neymar’s coronation. Initially, all went well. Brazil had won the Confederations Cup in 2013 in a tournament marked by explosions of patriotic pride, notably the passionate a cappella pre-match renditions of the national anthem.

But by 2014, the mood had soured. There were anti-government demonstrations and the World Cup had come to be seen as emblematic of widespread corruption. But the football went well, for a time. Neymar was much praised after an opening 3–1 win over Croatia in which he scored twice, one on a penalty. The concerns over whether the team was too centered on him, whether Oscar, Hulk and Fred ended up merely as the supporting cast, were drowned out by the excitement of Brazil winning in Brazil. When Mexico shut Brazil out in the second game, it was said to be down to the excellence of its keeper Guillermo Ochoa. Two more goals for Neymar in a 4–1 win over a disappointing Cameroon seemed to provide the point.

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But there was an odd sense in Brazil during that tournament, a frenzied nationalism that always felt fragile. A penalty shootout win over Chile in the last 16 exposed the weaknesses in the side—Neymar, of course, scored Brazil’s fifth penalty. And then came Colombia and a brutal quarterfinal. The post-match narrative tended to focus on Colombia’s targeting of Neymar, culminating in the barge on him by Juan Camilo Zúñiga that fractured his vertebra and put him out of the World Cup. And Colombia was guilty, but so too was Brazil, who also targeted James Rodríguez. Indeed, of 58 fouls in that game, only 21 were committed by Colombia.

Brazil won 2–1, but for all the desire to believe in the joga bonito myth, it had long since vanished. This was grim, cynical football, and the loss of Neymar only made it worse. Brazil suffered a collective hysteria. Newspapers were printed with black edges. Neymar seemed the most reasonable person in the country as he gave a measured video statement. Before the semifinal, as the players lined up for the anthems, David Luiz brandished a Neymar shirt as though this were some sort of memorial for a fallen giant rather than a World Cup semifinal. Playing on the edge of emotion, Brazil lost all discipline and, 5–0 down after half an hour, lost 7–1 to Germany.

That wasn’t Neymar’s fault, of course. But it did say a lot about the pressure he is under and the over-reliance of the Brazil national team upon him.

June 6, 2015: Barcelona 3, Juventus 1, Champions League final; Olympiastadion, Berlin

Neymar left Santos in 2013 for a fee initially reported as €57.1 million, although by the following January, investigations from the Spanish tax authorities had revealed the actual figure was €86.2 million with €45 million going directly to Neymar’s parents. The scandal led to the resignation of Barcelona president Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu stepping into the role—which, in some ways, is where it all began to go wrong for Barcelona.

On the pitch, Neymar took a little time to adapt. He scored only nine league goals in that first season, and there was a sense that physically he needed to bulk up for the rigors of the European game. Barça won nothing in 2013-14, but the arrival of Luis Suárez from Liverpool that summer changed everything. It wasn’t an immediate success, and in January '15 there was a clear possibility that Luis Enrique could be dismissed as manager. But by the end of that season, the so-called MSN (Messi-Suárez-Neymar) front line had clicked and Barça was playing a style that successfully combined three enormous individual talents with the complex patterns that had defined the club under Pep Guardiola.

Barça won the league and the Copa del Rey, but its best football came in the Champions League. Neymar scored three times across the two legs of the quarterfinal as PSG was dismissed 5–1 on aggregate, and he scored in both legs of a convincing semifinal win over Bayern. Neymar was involved in the build-up to Ivan Rakitić’s early opener in the final and then completed a 3–1 win with an injury-time goal.

It seemed as though Barcelona had achieved a synthesis between the two opposing schools of football—juego de posición and the desire for individuals who could ensure the system never became predictable. And it helped that the front three got on so well; even now they share a WhatsApp group chat. But age, ego and poor leadership were waiting.

June 17, 2015: Brazil 0, Colombia 1, Copa América group stage; Estadio Monumental David Arellana, Santiago, Chile

It did not resonate in the way the 7–1 had, but this defeat was no less a disgrace—worse, in many ways, as it was only against Colombia, only in a group stage. Neymar, it’s fair to say, played as though he had a point to prove after the previous year’s World Cup, but Neymar playing like a man on a mission only heightens his tendency to neglect team structures, and the result was a Brazil that was petulant, complacent and unimaginative.

Colombia, of course, set out to wind Neymar up. Who would not have done the same with a player so eminently wind-upable? Early on, Juan Cuadrado bundled him off the ball with a brusque shoulder charge, and Zuñiga seemed to take particular delight in sashaying past him after dispossessing him in the first half. By the end of the first half, he was close to the edge. Before halftime, Neymar was booked for a handball, grabbed referee Enrique Osses by the shoulder and then cuffed Cuadrado before fisting the ball away in frustration.

The end of the half perhaps saved him from dismissal, but not at full time. As the final whistle went, Neymar unleashed a shot that smacked Pablo Armero in the face. Jeison Murillo, who had scored the only goal of the game, remonstrated, to which Neymar responded with a flicked backward headbutt. Carlos Bacca charged over and shoved Neymar, and they were sent off. Amid the melee that ensued, Neymar continued to abuse the referee, eventually earning himself a four-game ban.

“The referees have to respect Neymar because he is always getting hit,” said Willian. But that encapsulated the problem. In Dunga’s Brazil, everything fed through Neymar, so, of course, he was subjected to the physical attention of opponents. That is how it has always been for great forwards, and the best of them learn to deal with that. Neymar, at that stage of his career, struggled and too often allowed himself to be wound up, either sulking or retaliating. As in the World Cup game, Brazil committed more fouls than Colombia. The victim myth is a delusion and one that has too often been used to excuse Neymar.

Brazil went through to the knockouts but again was eliminated by Paraguay in the quarterfinals.

Aug. 20, 2016: Brazil 1, Germany 1 (Brazil 5-4 on PKs), men’s Olympic gold medal game; Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro

Brazil long had an obsession with the Olympic soccer gold medal, the one major international tournament it had never won. It had also had an obsession with winning a tournament at home after the trauma of losing out in the World Cup to Uruguay in 1950 and then the humiliating 7–1 defeat to Germany in the World Cup semifinal in 2014. Brazil took the '16 Olympics, with its final at the Maracanã, far more seriously than anybody else, even to the extent of sending a second-string side to the U.S. for the Copa América Centenario.

And Neymar triumphed at home, just as he had in the Confederations Cup in 2013. He opened the scoring in the quarterfinal against his bête noire, Colombia. He got an early goal and a late penalty in the 6–0 rout of Honduras in the semifinal. Then came Germany in the final, and a chance to avenge the 7–1. Neymar put Brazil ahead with a fine free kick, but Max Meyer leveled and the game went to penalties. Neymar scored the decisive kick. It was his triumph, and in Brazil, it was celebrated wildly.

But most of the football world shrugged. Neymar had done what his country demanded, but the Olympics is largely a U-23 tournament, not elite-level football.

March 8, 2017: Barcelona 6, PSG 1, Champions League last 16; Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain

It was the greatest comeback in European history: Down 4–0 after the first leg, Barcelona came back to advance, despite conceding an away goal that seemed to have ended the tie. It went ahead in the third minute through Suárez, and an own goal from Layvin Kurzawa made it 2–0 five minutes before halftime. When Neymar was fouled five minutes into the second half, Messi converted a penalty that suddenly and decisively swung the momentum in Barça’s favor.

But an Edinson Cavani goal just after the hour mark seemed to have made Barça’s task too great; having needed one goal to take the tie to extra time, it suddenly needed three to win. When Neymar swept in an 88th-minute free-kick, it seemed largely academic. But then he converted a 91st-minute penalty and, as PSG collapsed, he sent in the cross from which Sergi Roberto made it 6–1 on the night, 6–5 on aggregate. It was a euphoric moment and was celebrated as such. Neymar had not only been brilliant but almost by force of will had dragged Barça into the quarterfinal when all had seemed lost.

There was, though, an underlying point, which was that the only reason Barça had to mount the comeback was that it had been so thoroughly outplayed in the first leg. Its midfield was completely overrun. True, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta were past their best, and André Gomes never looked entirely comfortable at the club, but the issue wasn’t so much the midfield as the fact that the midfield was left exposed—against top-class sides—by that front three, which as a unit was working less than it had two years earlier.

Although Barça did go through, it was hammered 3–0 by Juventus in the following round. The problem is one Barça has yet to get over, which is why its recent European history, at least until last year’s financial meltdown, has been of sudden big defeats—against PSG again, Roma, Liverpool and Bayern. By then, though, Neymar was gone.

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Aug. 13, 2017: Guingamp 0, PSG 3, Ligue 1; Stade de Roudourou, Guingamp, France

PSG wanted a big signing, somebody ready to establish the club as not just one of the elite, but above the elite. Paying €222 million to trigger Neymar’s release clause was a major statement, more than doubling the previous world transfer record—the first time since the 1890s it had increased by such a proportion in one step.

Neymar liked the idea of emerging from Messi’s shadow. Then, perhaps, he could win the Ballon d’Or. His father, also his agent, liked the money that was on offer. And the marketing people at PSG and Nike liked the idea of PSG signing a big-name Brazilian. PSG’s away shirt was changed to yellow in celebration of the union. Fans celebrated a major signing, waiting for Neymar at the airport and then queuing for hours to buy shirts. A reported 120,000 replica Neymar shirts were sold in his first month at the club. He was the glamorous savior coming to achieve PSG’s ambition of winning the Champions League, something it had failed to do in the six years since the takeover by Qatar.

And then came the reality. As Barcelona played Real Madrid, Neymar made his debut in a small town in Brittany with a population of around 7,000. He was, hardly surprisingly, given some rough treatment by defenders, but PSG was superior. He pressured a defender into an own goal. He played a brilliant pass to set up a second for Cavani. He knocked in a late third to complete what would widely be described as a perfect debut. But it was an empty triumph against players far below his level. He scored 19 goals in the league that season, but many of them felt cheap, against teams whose only way to stop him was to kick him.

PSG won a domestic treble that season, but Neymar wasn’t involved in the final three months of it, having fractured a metatarsal in a victory over Marseille in February. He played in the first leg of PSG’s 5–2 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League. And so the pattern was set: domestic success and continental failure, everything undermined by a series of injuries that have meant he has never played more than 20 league games in a season for PSG.

But at the same time, his departure had consequences for Barcelona. It felt humiliated to have lost the star it thought would be a natural successor to Messi. It had €222 million to burn and a perceived need to bring in stars to appease furious fans and assuage the bruised egos of its directors. And so it bought Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool (allowing Jürgen Klopp’s side to complete its ascent by signing Virgil van Dijk and Alisson with the proceeds) and Ousmane Dembélé from Borussia Dortmund.

Both signings largely failed and, as Barça struggled to replace aging stalwarts, the shortcomings of the Bartomeu regime became obvious. The club floundered first in a world of fees it had helped to inflate, and then in the contracting economic environment of the pandemic. When Bartomeu finally resigned last year, club debts stood at €1.3 billion.

July 6, 2018: Brazil 1, Belgium 2, World Cup quarterfinals; Kazan Arena, Kazan, Russia

Kazan, pretending it is closer to Moscow than it is, is in the wrong time zone, which means that dawn breaks at around 2:30 a.m. The first glimmers of light were just breaking in the sky over the Kazan Arena as Brazil left after a quarterfinal defeat to Belgium. As the other players got onto the team bus, Neymar stood alone in the parking lot, silhouetted against the pale dawn, head bowed. In that tableau, as the vast LED display that fronts the stadium flickered behind him, the burden on a man who carries the expectations of his nation was clear.

For Neymar, it had been another turbulent World Cup. There had been a late goal against Costa Rica in a group stage in which he was occasionally inspired, but too often petulant, as though outraged that opponents had the temerity to try to stop him. When things went badly, he tried to do everything himself, and again and again, he ended up running into traffic and diving, inspiring the wrong kind of internet trend. Against Mexico in the last 16, both those aspects of his game were on show.

There was a brilliant first goal, turned in by Neymar at the back post after his back-heel had released Willian, and he set up the late second for Roberto Firmino with a wayward shot. But in between, there was a moment of disgraceful simulation as he writhed on the touchline, a foot from the linesman after Miguel Layun had tried to take the ball from between his ankles and had, perhaps, trodden on him.

In the quarterfinal, Neymar was far less prominent, taken out of the game by Belgium’s decision to field Romelu Lukaku wide on the right in a 4-3-3 formation. With Marouane Fellaini dominating Coutinho on Brazil's left, Thomas Meunier was able to call Neymar’s bluff, tearing forward from fullback unopposed. This is what can happen with a player who is intermittent in the fulfillment of his defensive duties. Belgium, breaking dangerously down the right, won 2–1, and Neymar was out of another World Cup.

To suggest the exit was his fault would be absurd, but equally, it’s impossible not to think that Brazil’s dependency upon him was not a factor in its general sluggishness and its inability to react quickly once it became clear that the tactical battle was being lost.

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Aug. 23, 2020: PSG 0, Bayern Munich 1, Champions League final; Estadio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal 

Perhaps it will be as close as Neymar ever comes to a Champions League title at PSG. It is a club seemingly caught in the classic bind of celebrity. It had bought famous players and so it had to play them because that was what excited the fans. But while a celebrity forward line might be good at bullying Angers or Troyes, it risks leaving its midfield exposed against high-class opposition. Again and again, PSG had been undone by that issue in the competition it desperately wanted to win.

But in 2020, as COVID-19 restricted the latter stages to single-leg ties, PSG seemed, under Thomas Tuchel, to have found a way of balancing a less than defensively responsible front three with a hard-working midfield. Neymar was the key in turning a tough quarterfinal comeback vs. Atalanta. RB Leipzig was swept aside in the semis. In the final, Neymar was denied midway through the first half by the legs of Manuel Neuer and then struggled to impose himself, forced too deep by the Bayern press. The only goal of the game was scored by Kingsley Coman, a PSG academy graduate—exactly the sort of player forced out of the club by the focus on imported glamour.

And so what remains? Three French league titles and three French cups in four years are barely a minimum requirement for a club of PSG’s resources in a moderate league. Former managers have spoken of the cliques and egos in the dressing room. When Unai Emery was in charge, Neymar organized a three-day birthday party and invited his coach to come and cut the cake. PSG may effectively be unmanageable, hoping barely organized talent is enough. Cristiano Ronaldo got away with that at Real Madrid because he had in Karim Benzema and Ángel Di María two players who sublimated their games to his needs and, in Casemiro, Toni Kroos and Luka Modrić a brilliantly balanced midfield that could control games. Neymar has nothing like that support at PSG, where it could be argued now that he is third-fiddle to Kylian Mbappé and Messi.

He is just turning 30. There is still time, and he has already won a lot, certainly more than most. The early hype was absurd, and if he has not lived up to it, it is largely because nobody could have. The expectation in Brazil has been counterproductive. But equally, the decision to leave Barça for PSG meant that in his peak years he was playing the bulk of his football in a league that was not a challenge for him and for a club whose contradictions inhibit it at the highest level. He has achieved a lot, but there is a clear sense he could have achieved more. This year's World Cup, which he claims could be his last, might be one of his final opportunities to do that.